Black Mountain Trail , Los Altos , CA (3079)

Not an easy hike - strenuous!

One of the things that I had great difficulty accepting was that somehow (unwittingly) I had hiked the “Mission Peak” trail in Fremont with a plugged artery. That hike has 2400 feet of elevation and I spent about 4 hours roundtrip, yet only got blisters. No chest pain (or in my case, back pain)..

Hindsight can be just as confusing as the present!

This confusion evolved steadily into an obsession to try the hike again post surgery, to see how I would do with all my arteries cleared (and a little for confidence that I could still do these sorts of things).

Then, without nearly enough forethought, I also decided to try a “new” trail, and substituted Black Mountain Trail for Mission Peak. “It’s been 4 weeks, I am ready!”

As I discovered, they are very different hikes.

Make sure that the Mission Peak hike is EASY for you before hiking Black Mountain.

First - the trail is much more narrow than Mission Peak, and there is lots of Poison Oak and rattlesnakes. I ran across 4 rattlesnakes without leaving the trail.

The first quarter and final third of the hike are as steep as anything on Mission Peak (but there are switchbacks in the middle section)

I had to park at Foothill College which adds .7 miles to the peak. With this, it took me app 3.5 hours to make the peak, only 2 hours at Mission Peak.

Besides the often narrow path at Black Mountain, it is densely wooded vs. the wide open scenery at Mission Peak.

Would I do it again? Yes, it is a beautiful hike; but, this is a once a year type hike for me..

 

 

Done